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Common terms and phrases
actions adaptation analogy appear argument Aristotle benevolence Bishop Berkeley Bishop Butler called cardinal virtues charity Christianity Cicero circumstances Confucius conscience consequences crime cruelty dæmon deduce Deity desires distinct Divine law duties enjoyment Ethics exercise existence expediency external fact falsehood feeling founded happiness heart honesty honour human law human nature imperfect individual inference inferior animals influence instance instinctive intellectual involves jus gentium justice latter less Lord Bacon ment mental mind misery moral constitution moral disorders moral evil moral faculty moral nature moral obligation Moral Philosophy moral sentiment moralists motives nations natural religion natural theology necessary Necessitarians necessity obedience object observe original ourselves Paley Pantheism passions perfect persons Phrenology physical Plato pleasure political possess precepts present principle promises punishment question reason recognised regarded relations respecting revelation says Scripture selfishness Socrates spiritual theory things truth vices virtuous wrong Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 75 - Wisdom for a man's self is in many branches thereof a depraved thing ; it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall; it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger who digged and made room for him; it is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour ; but that which is specially to be noted is that those which, as Cicero says of Pompey, are sui amantes sine rivali...
Page 75 - The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
Page iii - But there is a superior principle of reflection or conscience in every man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart, as well as his external actions ; which passes judgment upon himself and them; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust; which, without being consulted, without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or condemns him, the doer of them, accordingly...
Page 67 - Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy ; but in passing it over he is superior : for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence?
Page 74 - This of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity: and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin.
Page 39 - So that the idea of liberty is the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other...
Page vi - ... judgment upon himself and them; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust; which, without being consulted, without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or condemns him the doer of them accordingly: and which, if not forcibly stopped, naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence...
Page 27 - I mean that it is not a safe way of arguing, to assume certain principles as so many dictates, impulses, and instincts of nature, and then to draw conclusions from these principles, as to the rectitude or wrongness of actions, independent of the tendency of such actions, or of any other consideration whatever.
Page xxix - In a word, its chief obscurity, and which it is wholly unable to disperse, is that which rests on the hopes and the destiny of our species. There is in it enough of manifestation to awaken the fears of guilt, but not enough again to appease them. It emits, and audibly emits, a note of terror ; but in vain do we listen for one authentic word of comfort from any of its oracles. It is able to see the danger, but not the deliverance. It can excite the forebodings of the human spirit, but cannot quell...
Page xxix - It is here where the main helplessness of nature lies. It is baffled in all its attempts to decipher the state and the prospects of man, viewed in the relation of an offending subject to an offended sovereign. In a word, its chief obscurity, and which it is wholly unable to disperse, is that which rests on the hopes and the destiny of our species. There is in it enough of manifestation to awaken the fears of guilt...